


oh simple thing (where have you gone)

by volti



Series: ShuMako Week 2019 [1]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Boyfriend sweaters, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, F/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 09:55:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17423696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/volti/pseuds/volti
Summary: She's getting old, and she needs something to rely on.aka, Four times Akira lent Makoto his hoodie, and one time he let her keep it.Written for ShuMako Week Day 1 -Milestones!





	oh simple thing (where have you gone)

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Shumako week everyone!!!! I hope you're enjoying all the beautiful content that's coming out this week ♥️I've got four pieces I'm definitely writing/have definitely written, but hopefully I'll be able to get to the other three sooner rather than later. This is probably the longest of them, but I spent a long time on it and it really feels like a labor of love.
> 
> This piece was written for Day 1 - Milestones. Please enjoy, and thank you in advance for any kudos and comments you leave!

October is a time that Makoto will never get used to.

Even with the constancy and the anchor of midterm exams to rely on every year, it feels as though the world itself is conspiring against her. Traffic is unpredictable. Anything could happen to anyone in the student body. Sure, those are things that can happen any time of year, but October is the halfway point that forces her to look, really look, at the progress she’s made. As a president. As a college-bound student. As a strategist. Even as a girlfriend.

The novelty of that last one—just a couple of weeks in—throws her for a loop, always.

Mostly, it’s the weather that gets her. This time of year, it’s paradoxical as always—predictably unpredictable. The mornings have her shivering within two steps outside of her apartment, urging her to dig out her coat before its time. But by the time the afternoon rolls around, it’s too warm for anything more than her vest and turtleneck, and she’s inevitably left slinging the woolen, weighty thing over her arm and maneuvering more than she needs to on the subway ride home.

Frankly, it’s annoying, and she wishes October would make up its damn mind.

She also wishes that, sometimes, it wouldn’t reverse its tricks beyond her knowledge, or beyond the knowledge of the forecast. If it would let her know it, then she wouldn’t have to stand in the lobby well after the last bell has rung, staring down the street with her arms wrapped around her body. If it would let her know it, she wouldn’t have to watch the wind whip through the bushes lining the school steps, wouldn’t have to shiver every time a gaggle of students pushes through the double doors and giggles or complains about the temperature. And she wouldn’t have to feel so pathetic about not being able to predict things she probably couldn’t even predict in the first place.

It shouldn’t feel like a personal failing, but it does. It shouldn’t feel like an opportunity for anyone to mock her, but it does.

“There you are. I was looking for you.”

The voice behind Makoto cuts sudden through the intermittent howling just outside, and makes her jump with a yelp. She’s clutching her chest and willing it to slow down by the time she turns on her heel, but the sight of Akira and Ryuji standing and waving just by his shoe locker does little to alleviate her. In fact, it probably makes her heart speed up, and funnels what feels like a bucket of adrenaline straight to her stomach. She hopes it isn’t too much; she wouldn’t know how to explain that to a doctor.

“You… you were?” 

As soon as the words leave Makoto’s mouth, she wants to kick herself for forgetting to say hello. The thing about being a girlfriend that’s getting to her, she’s slowly come to realize, is that she’s starting to overanalyze practically everything she’s doing. She’s starting to wonder if even the smallest slip-ups are reason for him to disapprove of her, or reconsider his offer to be _study partners._ From a logical distance, she knows it’s just the emotions talking, and that she’s being utterly ridiculous, because overanalyzing is probably one of the reasons he likes her so much (and even recognizing that he _does_ like her so much takes some getting used to). But that doesn’t mean the emotions aren’t there to begin with. It doesn’t mean they don’t have her in an iron grip during the exact moments she doesn’t want them to. Just as bad as October.

Akira nods with a glance back to Ryuji, wrestles with his locker for a few moments, and then with his shoes for a few moments more. Whatever wordless exchange they had must mean something, because Ryuji shakes his head with a hint of a smile, waves his hand dismissively, and heads out first with phone in hand. On the way out, he claps her shoulder, which jolts her to attention again, but he’s gone before she can say anything.

Makoto’s blushing, and she knows it. “So Ryuji, huh?” she tries. At least she can blame the way she rubs the goosebumps off her arm on the leftover cold.

“Yeah,” Akira laughs. It sounds nervous, but maybe that’s wishful thinking on her part. “Ryuji.”

Silence falls between them for a moment that, in Makoto’s opinion, lasts a touch too long. Akira is the first to break it; he clears his through, slams his locker shut with his bag slung over one arm and a bundle cradled in the other. From a distance, Makoto can’t tell what it is, only that it looks soft. Maybe it’s a blanket for Morgana; it must be uncomfortable hiding in a schoolbag or a desk all day.

Once he’s close enough, he unfolds the bundle, and reaches around her to drape it over her shoulders. It’s a hooded sweater, plain and black and just as soft as she imagined it might be. “What… is this for?” she asks, surprised that she can wade through fresh chills and hormones. 

“It’s cold out there,” Akira says simply, and tugs at the lapel of his uniform jacket. “Don’t worry about me. I have an extra layer or two on you.”

“Of course I’m going to worry about you,” she mumbles, but she’s shrugging into the sweater all the same. It smells warm, and spiced, and like a homecoming game. She isn’t totally sure what that means, but she saw it in an American film once, so it has to mean something.

“I know you are.” If they were any other couple, any other people—if they had been dating any longer—this would probably be the part where he kissed her somewhere. A first between new lovers, or a comfortable one between comfortable people. Instead, he slips his hand in hers before she has the chance to be mortified about anything, and gives it a squeeze. It’s as comfortable as they get for now, but Makoto has no complaints. “Come on. I’ll take you to Shibuya.”

The next morning, she leaves the sweater freshly washed and folded on his desk with Ann’s help, along with a delicate _Thank you_ written on a sticky note. Maybe it’s too formal or stiff for boyfriend and girlfriend, but she’s getting used to this. She’s getting used to new things, and unpredictability, and what October is supposed to mean.

———

That’s the funny thing about time: once you finally get used to one moment, it’s gone and replaced with another for you to learn.

Makoto doesn’t find it funny at all. Especially when November is chock full of those moments, one after another after another, without any of the constancy she would like. November bombards her with reminders of college entrance exams, and relationship milestones that leave her blushing with her face in her hands, and the kind of person she’s meant to be in school. And that’s to say nothing of having to evade police suspicion, throw off any notion that she might actually have a bounty on her head, or or having to witness the descent of her older sister’s heart firsthand, with the person she trusts the least ever at her side. 

It’s bad enough that on more than one occasion she has to traverse a fake Casino in search of family that could never be hers, but every occasion brings about another weight of stress. The sight of her shadow sister. Puzzle after puzzle and game after game weighted in Sae’s favor. The pretend well-meaning nature of Goro Akechi pervading literally everything she tries to do. The double planning, the bugged calls, the discovery of a murder plot that leaves a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach every time she thinks about it.

To say it takes a toll on her, body and mind, is an understatement.

If there is one thing she can sort of call constant, it’s the eye contact she makes with Akira, in this world and in the Metaverse. Whether it’s gray eyes behind glasses or red behind a joker’s mask, he makes a point to watch her as intently as she watches him. To have more of those silent conversations, like the one he had with Ryuji by the lockers. But they’ve learned to say more over the weeks, from the time they’ve spent together and simply from practicing not to divulge anything around Akechi. If he’s close enough, he’ll give her the comfort of a touch of the hand, but the looks are grounding enough. Even the one he gives her once the final battles are said and done, and they’ve picked up the signals of police forces outside.

It’s all according to plan—their plan—but a look from Akira as he takes the briefcase is enough to still her shaking hands. All he has to say is, “Go,” and it could mean the end of everything, but that flash of his eyes behind his mask says more. It says, _I’ve got this._ It says, _I trust you as much as you trust me._

She wants to tell him that of course she trusts him. It’s this damn world she doesn’t trust. It’s Goro Akechi she doesn’t trust.

It’s, maybe a little bit, herself she doesn’t trust.

Because even in the face of something as certain as death, there is a pile of what-ifs. What if we learn how to escape it? What if we try? What if we do everything right, and everything does go as planned, even the last-minute things we remember in the middle of the night, and we survive just a little longer?

And what if we don’t?

It’s always that last one that throws us for a loop, and Makoto is no different. For a full day and then some, she’s full of what-ifs of every kind, even the last one, the one that weighs the hardest. For a full day and then some, her eyes are as glued to the news as they can be, right down to the moment of Akira’s suicide announcement. The moment that makes her freeze in her high school hallway and forget the rest of the world in the worst way. Really, it’s the perfect moment for that last what-if to strike and sink its teeth.

She has to remember his eyes to get through the rest of the day. She has to remember that look. That trust. It’s what carries her to Leblanc for the evening, a tired bundle of nerves that a cup of coffee only exacerbates. It’s what keeps her gaze fixed on the door through every piece of conversation, and what lets her relax once that door finally opens and Akira steps through.

The look is all she needs for all those what-ifs to dissolve, as though they never existed in the first place.

She doesn’t remember much of the conversation that followed—only that it consists of a lot of explanation, some reconciliation with Sae, and relief, relief, relief. And that afterwards she is given exactly what she needs: silence, and quality time with a boy she loves. A boy who smiles at her weakly, looks her up and down, and murmurs, “You remembered a coat this time.”

It takes everything in Makoto not to run at him for a hug, because he must be bruised and wounded far more than his school uniform shows, but she tears up all the same. Upstairs, he wipes her tears while she dresses his wounds, but the whole thing seems cruel, Sisyphean. For every tear he dries, two more spring up in his place. For every bruise she treats, another blossoms across his skin, makes itself known. She decides then, well before the last bandage is plastered, that she’ll never understand how the world can damage a boy so beautiful and so right, leave him and his loved ones to pick up the pieces it made. How the world can try to do everything in its power to break a boy who, at the foot of his bed and what really feels like the end and the beginning of everything, holds her face in his battered hands and kisses her and tells her not to cry anymore.

“I have to go home soon,” she whispers, still blurry with tears in spite of his wishes, “but I don’t want to.”

Akira thumbs away those tears, too, and says nothing about how splotchy her face must look. Instead, he hums, and gets to his feet with her help, and rummages through a chest underneath his makeshift bed. He rises with that same black hoodie in his arms, and collapses onto the bed moments before he hands it to her. “Then take this with you,” he says, “and call me when you’re home safe.”

Makoto sniffles with the sweater in her arms. “It’s not the same thing as—”

“I know. I know it’s not.” Gently, he pulls her down into a hug, one that’s as tender as she’s always known him to be, one that smells like those spices and that warmth. “But it’s something. And I want to give you something, if you’ll take it.”

When he asks if she will, she can’t say no. She can’t say no to Akira, except for when he tells her to keep the sweater.

———

Makoto has to get used to “something,” too, but making do is worth it. Or at least, it has to be worth it when there’s too much at stake. Things like human lives, imagination, free will, self-reliance, belief. Abstract things that she didn’t think she or anyone else would ever gamble on. But she has to, for humanity’s sake. The _Phantom Thieves_ have to, for humanity’s sake.

Christmas Eve changes everything, and not in the way it’s normally supposed to. Instead of a carefully thought-out after-school date, she’s face-to-face with giant rumbling doors and a literal depth of human thought she could never have anticipated. Instead of exchanging gifts, she’s exchanging blows with Shadows and facing the horrors of self-resignation dead-on. And instead of sharing her emotions, she’s plagued with this incessant, unearthly moaning, a desperation that feeds life into a Treasure she never knew existed. Never thought existed for real. But the Holy Grail and the impending apocalypse, like many things, are only the stuff of legends until she sees them up close.

On Christmas Eve, she stops existing. Literally. As in, her body dissipates before her own eyes, before he has the chance to reach out to Akira or anyone else or even scream for help. As in, she’s trapped in a jail cell in what must be some realm between life and death—and in plainclothes, no less—and forced to comb through her own thoughts until she goes crazy. As in, Akira—no, Joker—has to bring her to life and to whatever self she has, and stands with her at the end of everything, holds her hand in his, and ascends a staircase to a god. A false god, but still a god.

On Christmas Eve, they are remembered enough, celebrated enough, strong enough, to kill control incarnate. And Makoto would be lying if she said it didn’t leave her exhausted and empty and whatever other assonant words exist to describe her. At the end of the day, she’s too tired to think of any more.

So it’s right on cue when Akira sends her a text a couple of hours later inviting her to his place, and she’s even too tired to blush about it.

She’s been to the attic before—or rather, she’s been alone with Akira in the attic before, probably more times than she can count. So it’s nothing she should be embarrassed about. Perhaps it’s only because it’s a holiday, and one for couples like them, that she’s flustered at all. But even those feelings give way to fatigue, and the buzz of anxiety when she remembers… well… everything. Most of all that she basically died, and that he had to watch the whole thing. It’s too overwhelming for her to handle alone, so she shifts her way into Akira’s lap, lets him drape that hooded sweater over her like a blanket. He holds her in the quiet, rocks her and cares for her the way she did for him a month ago, without the first aid. Because if there’s anything she’s learned about love—at least enough not to flunk out of it—it’s that it’s mutual.

Somewhere, in between kisses to her temple and a squeeze she weakly returns, she murmurs, “I have something for you.”

She can feel his smile against her scalp. It’s oddly comforting. “All this stuff that’s happened, and you have a gift. I feel like I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Oh, hush…” With a yawn, she leans over—really, as much into his chest as she can—and fishes a velvet box out of her coat pocket, laying it in his hand. “It felt like something you needed to have. I couldn’t not get it for you.”

Carefully, Akira pries the box open to reveal a simple watch. Of course she’d noticed that his had stopped working months ago, and that he only wore it for the show and the weight of something on his wrist. He smiles down at the box, something that shouldn’t be melancholy but is, and doesn’t take the watch out. He only closes the box instead, sets it aside, holds her closer. Tighter. Like he’s never going to get to do it again.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, but Akira doesn’t answer. He just keeps holding her. Just keeps kissing her. It isn’t until she wriggles out of his lap and looks him square in the eye that he starts to really shift.

“Are you hiding something from me?” she asks, with ice in her blood. Says it in a way that really says she hopes the answer isn’t _yes._

Akira doesn’t say anything at first, but eventually he takes the velvet box, holds it in both hands and thumbs the material, and says, “I’m sorry.”

Makoto’s heart sinks. “No, no,” she says—an instinctual response, but in some way she really does mean it. And it hurts that she means it. “ _I’m_ sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Akira says. “Please.”

Christmas Eve changes everything here, too, and she probably should have known it. Probably shouldn’t be wondering if this is a sign that things are going downhill fast, and maybe she shouldn’t have invested so much into her first love, _real_ love, but _I’m sorry_ is all she needs to hear and all she needs to say back to know that something is wrong. Very wrong. Wrong enough that she’s not even sure she wants to know what it is.

Akira swallows hard, like he’s almost ashamed to speak to her, and nods cautiously to the sweater, which is tucked into the corner of the loveseat in an unceremonious heap. “You should take that with you.”

There’s a moment that Makoto freezes up, and it’s not because of the cold, and she hates it. It almost makes her want to take back the watch, and she hates it. It makes her stay there a little longer, wondering if he needs someone with him or if he needs the space, if he needs her nearby or if he needs her as far away as possible, and she hates that, too. She hates and hates and hates, more than she’s ever felt it, no matter how hyperbolic it sounds. She’s a teenager. She’s allowed to be. “I’ll be fine,” she croaks, and trudges down the stairs without a gift, without a keepsake, without half her heart.

Without her love the next morning—on _Christmas_ morning—because he’s in juvenile hall, and she’s got her head against the booth and a cup of cold coffee she can never nurse properly and no sweater and nothing, nothing, nothing in her hands.

———

It feels like she has nothing in her hands for a long time.

Which sounds dramatic, and logically is wholly untrue. Over the month and a half that follows, she’s got something. A plan with the others, evidence she’s been working on compiling, testimonies. Anything she can get her hands on to absolve Akira of his accusations. Anything she can find that will tell the city, the country, that he isn’t the delinquent they think he is. That he never has been.

But it felt like nothing on Christmas when Sojiro first gave her the news, and it felt like nothing on New Year’s Eve when she looked down at a crowd in Shibuya and scorned them for their happiness. And it felt like nothing any time she heard or felt a phantom vibration, and picked up her phone, and found no messages waiting there. None of the encouragement she became so used to.

She doesn’t know how many times she scrolled past Akira’s name in her phone, or hoped that if she looked at it enough, it would get him out. How many times she tapped on it, just to see it and remember his face, in the pockets of free time she had. She only knows that sometimes it felt like nothing, and that she was getting so tired of feeling so quietly empty all the time. Even when Sae checked in on her the day before college entrance exams, apologized for what needed to be done, and hoped for the best in her own way. Even when Sojiro passed her a complimentary cup of the daily blend, just the way she liked it, and told her she was working far too hard for someone her age. Even when Ryuji and Ann and Haru peeked into the Student Council Room or the school library almost daily, sometimes to actually get schoolwork done, sometimes just to keep her company and let her lean into them.

So maybe it’s a personal favor from the universe when Sae, softened by time and new resolve, stops by her room the morning before Valentine’s Day and says, “I’m going to get him.”

“Get him?” Makoto repeats.

Sae smiles then—and that’s when it really feels like a favor. “He’s been acquitted.”

Makoto doesn’t even see Akira until after school lets out, but for the first in a long time, she has something. She has _that_ something. And now that she has it, all the other somethings come out from hiding and make her whole again. Maybe homecoming is the right word for it, in the end. Akira’s home. Not in the countryside again, not yet. But this is home, too. A barstool in Leblanc, surrounded by friends and the people he loves, with good food in his stomach and a bed upstairs.

It’s not the end of everything. It’s the beginning. It has to be.

On Valentine’s Day, Akira catches her in the Student Council Room after school, smiles and says, “Some things never change, huh.” Which feels just as homecoming as anything else. He slides the door shut behind him, reaches for her hands when she gets up to greet him. They feel so secure, holding her in place, his thumbs rubbing her knuckles and the gaps between them, and then pulling her into a gentle hug that leaves them swaying on the spot. Like it’s two in the morning on a Sunday, and they’ve got pajamas and oversized socks and all the time in the world.

“I’m home,” he says.

“Welcome home,” she murmurs back, and then Akira’s kissing her after a glance to the door, wrapping his arms around her waist and smiling against her lips when she leans up on her toes to kiss him back. It’s a real welcome home kiss, the kind where he picks her up and sets her on the desk and everything, and he doesn’t let go. He isn’t injured, and he isn’t going anywhere, and he doesn’t let go. And neither does she.

“You want to hear something sad?” Akira says. He’s standing between her legs, grinning not too far from her lips.

Makoto sighs out, fingers dancing along the nape of his neck and the wisps of hair there, and tries not to think about the fact that she’s sitting on her notebook. “What’s that?”

“My own girlfriend didn’t get me any Valentine’s chocolate.”

“You—” She fights everything in her not to hide her face in her hands. “I’m _going_ to, it’s just that it was such short notice, and—and—”

“I know,” Akira says, and he lets her yank him into another kiss so she doesn’t have to try and explain.

When she stops by Leblanc later that evening, fumbling with her purse, she makes it a point not to look at Akira—who’s probably eyeing her affectionately from behind the bar anyway, in the middle of closing up shop. Her face heats up when Sojiro shrugs out of his apron, dons his hat and coat, and makes some comment about having fun and cleaning up after themselves. She waits in one of the booths for Akira to finish, to flip the sign to CLOSED, and to take her by the hand and lead her up to the attic.

“I brought it,” she says to break the silence.

Akira squeezes her hand and lets it go, nudging back the covers as he takes a seat on the bed and pats the empty space beside him. Which is new, and makes Makoto’s stomach turn in about five different directions. Is he asking what she thinks he’s asking? He’s even taking off his blazer and his shoes, and scooting further back to make room for her, and—

“I just want to cuddle,” he says, soft and shy as anything, and Makoto settles on her heels in relief, carefully hangs up her bag and coat nearby, and leaves her boots behind to join him.

They’ve been this close before, in battle, and sometimes on dates or whenever they get a moment alone. But never lying down—at least, never on purpose. So she can’t really blame herself for the blood pounding fast in her ears, or the way her whole body feels like it’s trembling when he pulls her closer and drapes his arm over her waist. Even when he asks her if she’s cold. Even when she nods, faintly, and he leans over her to wrestle the sweater she knows so well out of the chest under his bed. He looks… _good,_ looming over her like that, and when he looks down at her she can’t help but short-circuit.

“I really want to kiss you right now,” she whispers, because screw it, it’s Valentine’s Day.

“Me too,” Akira whispers back, drops the sweater between them and kisses her hard, again and again, arm snaking around her back and tongue slipping into her mouth and everything. It’s the most they manage for however long it lasts, hands in hair and above the waist, comfortable bodies sinking into the bed. But it’s still enough to overwhelm all of her senses, to leave her clinging to him even as he rolls off of her, because he was on top of her, and she needs to process it, and she thinks she needs to process it while he’s still on top of her, while he’s still kissing life and sense and sounds out of her. But he only smiles from his side of the bed, stays close enough to try and keep kissing her even as she slips into his sweater. “You look good in my clothes,” he says with a laugh, pushes the hood down and tangles his legs with hers. “How do you feel, Makoto?”

She can’t remember the last time she was asked. “Like I could fall asleep like this.”

Akira sighs softly, closes his eyes and tucks her head under his chin. Even with the bulk of all the fabric, the trail of his fingers still tickles her spine, and his heart beats right to her ear, and the way his chest rises and falls with each breath is so certain, so safe. And if she listens close enough, she thinks she can hear him say, “I wish you would.”

———

Makoto Niijima is good at a lot of things, but reading unspoken signs isn’t one of them. At least, not the ones she probably should. She can infer plenty from books, pay attention to the details in conversations and bring the unsaid and the slips to the surface. But almost six months into a relationship, and she still has to ask Akira whether he really does like her, or whether he really is flirting with her, or whether he really does want to stay with her. Even as his last day of school approaches. Especially on the day itself.

She could probably lose count of how many times they talk in the moments they have alone. How many times their fingers dance together and linger on each other. How many times he looks her in the eyes and tells her that he wants this, and that he wants her, and that if they could manage a month and a half apart, then they could manage a year, especially a year when he can come visit whenever he has the time to. And the more he tells her, the more she can get herself to believe it. Even with the college acceptance letters clutched in her hands.

She just wishes time could march a little slower when she wants it to. Because mid-March comes too fast. Graduation comes too fast, and so does class enrollment, and setting up all the logistics of moving her whole life. And it feels as though all she had to do was blink to be behind the wheel of a rental van, college-bound and driving her boyfriend home. Roaring down the highway. Making for the ocean, and a hotel nearby.

This isn’t the end, either.

At some point on the road, Akira has the audacity in him—the insanity, maybe—to unbuckle his seatbelt and poke up through the sunroof. As if they aren’t going about ninety kilometers an hour. The periphery of the rearview mirror tells her that Ryuji and Yusuke are at least making the effort to hold him steady, but Akira isn’t moving. He’s still standing there, on the middle seat, halfway out the van, like he belongs in some teen movie that she hasn’t worked out the specifics of. 

He’s playing at freedom, she decides with a resigned smile at the car in front of her, and she takes the next exit to the beach.

It’s mostly thanks to Haru that they have the hotel rooms they do: one for the girls, one for the boys. She even suggested reserving a third room, just for Makoto and Akira, but Makoto blushed and stammered far too much to agree, and she still isn’t sure if she regrets it. She only knows they’re a day trip away from his hometown, and it’s too cold to go swimming but not cold enough that they can’t walk along the boardwalk or the sand. And that she’s going to make the most of this trip, and not think about how tomorrow she’s going to have to say goodbye to her boyfriend in front of God and everyone.

It’s too windy outside for a picnic, and they didn’t bring any substantial food besides, so they treat themselves to lunch in town, an hour of shopping here, an hour along the boardwalk there. The water at the beach is freezing, and Ryuji and Ann barely take five steps before they’re complaining about the sand in their shoes, but Makoto makes it all the way to the shoreline with her hand in Akira’s, and when she turns back to look at him he’s got his phone in his hand and a smile on his lips.

“Perfect,” he says, and pockets the phone. “Like you’re leading me wherever I go.”

Makoto squeezes his hand, and tugs him beside her. “You’ve been doing that enough,” she replies under the roar of the waves. “Now it’s my turn.”

At the end of the beach, where the rocky cliffs lie and where the sun begins to sink, he tells her he has something for her, and to wait for him in front of the boys’ hotel room later that night. She shouldn’t be nervous about it, not when everyone in their group knows about them, and certainly not after their stint on Valentine’s Day. But even still, she finds herself wringing her hands and shifting from foot to foot, waiting for him to come out and meet her. Waiting to be alone with him, one more time.

When he pokes his head out, he’s got his bag with him. Neither of them is particularly dressed up, but he still looks at her like he belongs in one of those many movies they’ve watched together. The kind where she’s coming down the stairs in some fancy gown, and he’s got an expression that says he’s forgotten how to breathe. He looks at her like he’s trying to commit her to memory.

“Come with me,” he whispers, and nods his head down the hall.

They don’t stray very far. In fact, they wind up lying back on the hood of the rental van, huddling close for warmth and staring up at a sky with no stars. (She curses the streetlights for not even affording them that.) It’s no bed, but at least she can rest her head on his arm for a while. And at least he can pull her a little closer and ask her, every so often, if she’s doing okay.

She’s not, but she’ll manage. She’s good at playing parts.

Hiding tears, though, not so much.

Akira looks over at the first sound of a hiccup she can’t contain, and his face twists into an odd, blurry mixture that she can’t quite place. Empathy, maybe, or pity. Whatever it is, he sits up with her and frames her face in both hands, kisses her forehead and her cheeks and her lips oh-so-soft, oh-so-slow. Blows cool air through pursed lips to soothe her, and somehow that only makes her cry even more.

“I don’t want you to go,” she whispers, coughs, wipes her eyes with the cuff of her coat. “I love you.”

“Are you cold?” he asks.

She doesn’t see what that has to do with anything, but she nods, faintly, and he slides off the hood of the car. For a foolish moment, she almost tells him to come back, like he’s disappearing on her, but he only bends into the passenger’s seat where his bag hides, and lays his sweater, folded as neatly as possible, in her lap.

“Keep it,” he murmurs. “Take it with you to university.” He’s not looking at her, but his fingertips, icy cold, brush against the back of her hand and slip into the spaces in between. “Take _me_ with you.”

At this rate she could probably start crying all over again. With a sniffle, she squeezes his hand, and scoots a little closer, and regrets every moment she didn’t spend with him, and relives every moment she did. “I will,” she says. “I will.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/omnistruck) and a [Tumblr](http://voltisubito.tumblr.com) where you can follow me! As always, thank you so so so much for reading. I'm always happy to contribute to this fandom and this ship!


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